Boiling water...boils my blood!

Okay I just have to vent a little bit, but we've been under a "Boil Water Alert" since August 18th, 2008...um, that's right ONE WEEK! One friggin' week people! That's a really long time (in my opinion) to boil water for drinking, cooking, washing your dishes, and especially brushing your teeth! Hellooooo we live in the 21st century! We shouldn't have to boil our water before using it! But our blue ribbon water department our neighborhood is associated with is the PITS--the PITS I tell you! So we get the alert by local news, local radio news, and of course..the old fashioned way, word of mouth (the way I found out) on Tuesday, Aug. 19th. Then they proceed to mail a letter to its customers about why we're under notice. But they didn't even have the decency to write their own letter! Instead, they went to the MS Dept. of Health's website and printed out their notice. So the majority of the community it serves receive this mailed notice by THURSDAY...yes, THURSDAY, Aug 21st! If you can't do the math, it's 3 days after the alert. And for those of us that actually read the letter, they continued to put in bold text "This precaution will last at least two full days". Two days from when?? from the time the alert was put into effect or two days from the time we recieved the letter?!?? Either way, it's TOO LATE! Who knows how long our water system had been affected by total coliform bacteria before they discovered it and how many of the community has consumed this diseased water. So this morning after brusing my teeth with freshly boiled water, yet cooled, I decided to call the water department myself. To my knowledge, we had not been notified that the alert had been lifted. Mind you, it had been past the 2 days. So starting at 8:05 AM today, I attempted to call the water dept...which was not an easy task! They either were talking on the phone while on the job, flooded with calls from irate customers, or just merely avoiding it all and placed the phone off the hook. Dial, after dial, after re-dial, I finally got through to them at 9:30 AM!! The lady was nice, but of course, we are still under the Boil Water Alert!! So, I asked when they thought they'd have this problem contained and under control. Lady says, "M'am, we hope by tomorrow. They are supposed to let us know something tomorrow, but let me get your name & number so that we can call you as soon as this alert has been lifted." Keeping my fingers crossed, this will all be over with soon! And maybe she'll keep to her word and call me as soon as it's lifted. Believe me, I'll keep you posted! Until then, I guess I have no choice but to keep boiling water or using bottled water for everything!

Here's what Averi thinks about the letter: